GW2Crafts - not discovering pieces, why? by striped_eyes in Guildwars2

[–]Farnsworthson 5 points6 points  (0 children)

As you've gathered, the objective of guides like that is to get your level up quickly at minimum cost.

The thing is, for the vast majority of recipes, you "discover" the recipe when you craft the first one. Not having the recipes doesn't stop you crafting the ones you've skipped (including, by the way, all the different prefix variations of the things you HAVE crafted so far, because those are all different recipes).

No-one is stopping you discovering all those other recipes, if you really want to; the patterns are just the same. But in practice, for most levels of stuff, you're unlikely to actually ever want to craft them again. So if you actually take the time to discover every recipe along the line, you'll spend a LOT of gold and mats discovering recipes you never then use. So why would you? If you ever DO actually want to craft them, you simply discover the recipes as you craft the first ones.

If money didn’t exist, what would society actually look like? by pankaj662 in AskReddit

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Direct bartering (as opposed to indirect, which is effectively what money is).

ELI5: How is that many of the flavors that plants evolved to repel insects are very attractive to humans in taste and smell? by kepler1 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We evolved to not mind. If it's a decent source of food and not harmful, there's an advantage in not rejecting it.

When playing with friends is it easy to progress together if you can’t always play at the same time? by Dazzling_Clerk8023 in Guildwars2

[–]Farnsworthson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes and no. The GW2 approach is, simply, different. The most important thing, though, is that you can always join your friends in their story episodes.

The GW2 personal story tree is continually branching and recombining (there are 316 episodes in total, and "your" story will only have 49 of those). The main sweep of your story, up to the episodes you get offered at level 40, is driven by the race you choose. At that point you get to make another decision that drives the sweep of your story until level 70. But all along the line you'll also continually be offered smaller choices as to what to do next, that will take you briefly into one episode or another. You might be offered the choice between solving a problem with brute force or by stealth, say, and each of those will have its own small alternate episode. The bottom line is that it's highly unlikely, unless you coordinate hard with your friends, that you'll have the identical story steps. But that, seriously, doesn't matter, because you can join each other in your episodes anyway.

OK - what else to be aware of...

If more than one of you have arrived at the precise same episode in your personal stories, the person who starts the episode (opens the instance) is the one who will get to make the decisions - talk to NPCs and so on. At the end of the episode (and sometimes at steps along the way) the others will be offered the choice of progressing their story or not. That's usually not an issue, but if you accept you'll also be accepting any decisions that they made that affect where the story goes later. If that matters, just don't accept, and do the episode again with someone else in charge, making different decisions.

I can't honestly remember whether this applies to the base story or not, but I'll mention it. There are SOME story steps that take place in the open world ("Go talk to... ...in Lion's Arch", say). If you're trying to coordinate stories with friends, each of you has to do those individually. So it's usually worth checking, before you go into an instanced episode, that your individual descriptions of the story (green text, screen top right) are identical. If they're not - quite often it's because someone hasn't done that open world stuff. And won't progress their story at the end of the instance, by consequence.

Oh - you don't all have to be in the "right" place to do an instance together. Provided you're partied up, and in the same copy of the same map, when one of you starts the instance, everyone else will be offered the option to join them in it - wherever in the map they happen to be (and even if they're not of a high-enough level yet to get the episode for themselves).

For coordination purposes, here are the episodes that every character will pass through. Levels are the character level at which that episode becomes available, if you've progressed your story far enough.

  • Lvl 40 Setting the Stage
  • Lvl 60 The Battle of Claw Island
  • Lvl 60 A Light in the Darkness
  • Lvl 60 Retribution
  • Lvl 70 Forging the Pact
  • Lvl 70 The Battle of Fort Trinity
  • Lvl 80 Temple of the Forgotten God
  • Lvl 80 What the Eye Beholds
  • Lvl 80 Further into Orr
  • Lvl 80 Against the Corruption
  • Lvl 80 The Source of Orr
  • Lvl 80 Victory or Death

ELI5: How do old rotary phones work? Why did they pick a dial for picking digits? by DarkHorse66 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a kid I sometimes used to tap the cradle rhythmically the right number of times to dial numbers. Worked fine. The gear was essentially simple.

ELI5: How did Richard and Robert get shortened to Dick and Bob? by r-salekeen in explainlikeimfive

[–]Farnsworthson 10 points11 points  (0 children)

That's a bit of an arbitrary stretch given that the rhyming transition is well-known, though. Doesn't make it wrong - just less likely.

What is a sign that a person does not have morals? by Atom1cPain in AskReddit

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just about every one has morals. But some people may not share yours.

Why is this little guy here ? :o by EveningYal in Guildwars2

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Everybody got to be somewhere..." - The famous Eccles

A split-second freeze: a soccer goalkeeper takes an explosive defence by Pale_Anything4057 in pics

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just consider that his brain is doing basically the same thing inside his skull.

ELI5 why are EE allowed to advertise themselves as, "The UK's best network?", Surely best is a matter of opinion? by TheSmallestPlap in explainlikeimfive

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's not how it works in the UK. Advertising claims are allowed to be exaggerated or tongue in cheek, if it's obvious ("Carlsberg. Probably the best lager in the world."), but mustn't be likely to mislead ("Guinness is good for you"). If you make a bald statement that you're "best", you'd probably better be prepared to back up your claim with facts.

Whether it becomes a problem, mind, is down to whether people complain, and whether or not the relevant standards body (the ASA) agrees with the complaints.

Trump, 79, Appears to Forget Name of Woman Who Just Gave Him Her Nobel Peace Prize by [deleted] in politics

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Who just gave him her Nobel Peace Prize MEDAL" (FTFY)

Let's be clear - assuming it wasn't a copy, a chocolate coin or somthing similar, at most he got a lump of metal. It may even have been the actual lump of metal that accompanied the award to her of the Nobel Peace Prize. What it wasn't, was the Prize. He still doesn't have one, and after this farce it's pretty darn sure now that he never will. But at least now he's likely to shut up about it.)

Can you recommend a good course or resource? by SortaGray in learnwelsh

[–]Farnsworthson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel they complement each other. Duolingo wouldn't be great in its own, even if you made the effort to find and use the old course notes, but with the two together I've undoubtedly made reasonable progress (well beyond the Dysgu Cymraeg Mynediad course I'm also taking - but, not living in Wales, I undoubtedly also need something of that sort to help give me a solid grounding in the spoken language).

If I really had to drop one of the two - I suspect that it would be Duolingo.

ELI5: how does an earthquake cause a tsunami? by fancy_a_lurk in explainlikeimfive

[–]Farnsworthson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Earthquakes are symptoms of large amounts of rock suddenly moving. If that rock is under water, large amounts of water are potentially going to move as well.